I had the pleasure to recently work with he most talented group of vendors on a gorgeous "Moody Neutrals Winter" Styled shoot. Following the lead of Samantha Leenheer, owner at Samantha Joy Events, I created this pretty cake:)
As all cakes designed for magazine features, it was iced and decorated like all our real cakes, with the most delicious rolled chocolate panels and decked with our own handcrafted sugar flowers and decorations!
A list of all the vendors who participated in this effort is listed below. You will want to come back later and check out all the pretty pictures that Jenny Hass captured, including those of our cake! Absolutely gorgeous!
Enjoy this sneak peak :)

And that's a wrap! Our participation at the Cincinnati Food and Wine Classicwas AWESOME! Our feet hurt, but our heart is content!. Thank you to each one of you who stopped by to chat with us and try our cakes! Our 3.000 cake samples where sold out and we were honored with your words of praise!!!. Our heart felt THANK YOU to the CFWC team who helped us all the way through:).
​We couldn't have done this without your help. Cheers to all your hard work!
#EYHOCincinnati #SugarRealm #WeddingCakesCincinnati #CakelikeaBoss#CFWC16

It is with great joy (and some disbelief), that I share with you the news that Sugar Realm has been awarded "Best of the City 2015, Upscale Wedding Cakes" by Cincinnati Magazine
To top it off, they commissioned a Cake for the cover of the December Issue...our FIRST magazine cover EVER!!!!
The magazine is on stands now, get your copy, before I buy them all!!!

We shot the cover of the magazine back in October, and planned to shoot different looks of the cake. Below are some of our progress pics of the cake with our full detail design!

Why Sugar Realm?. Here's the story.

As many of you may know by now, I'm an Architect by trade. In 2008, at the peak of the recession, I got laid off from a fabulous job as a senior Designer in an Architecture and Design Firm. I felt defeated. Three months after being back home, I found myself planning my daughter's first communion, cake included of course!. Since high-school, I dreamed of being a pastry chef and of owning a pastry shop. I've always been a great baker. Her cake was a HIT and orders from friends and acquaintances started coming my way....and I haven't stopped ever since!!!!

Now, back to the name. The last project that I worked at as a designer, was a very large themed park in Dubai (think whales:). The firm put together a team of top notched designers from all disciplines and it was on itself a bootcamp in creativity!!!.The park was organized into 5 Realms. The day that I sat with my sketch book at hand to figure out the name of my business, I decided that I would be Queen of my own kingdom where my imagination would rule. A sugar Realm all for myself...and now it fulfills me inmensely to share it with you.
Thank you for being part of this dream.
Sherri Barber: Photographer

I'm a lucky girl and I don't take that for granted.
I have a healthy and loving family and I have found my "call" with this Sugar Kingdom I have created for myself. 
I'm also very lucky because I'm able to work with great clients who make me feel like a rock star, and who appreciative my craft and the passion I put into my work as much as I do.
But my luck doesn't end there!...sometimes, I even receive praise from professionals and peers in this industry, and that makes me feel like I conquered the world!
One morning as I was working on pieces and parts for an order, I received a phone call from Chef Dominique Palazzolo, Founder and CEO of Marvelous Molds and Make your own Molds. I'm also lucky to live in the same city where these products are designed and manufactured, and I've been a LONG, LONG, LONG time user or their line of molds and custom mold making products. SO when Chef Dominique inquired if I would be interested in collaborating with them...I basically jumped from joy!!!

The Royal Garden wedding cake main features were created using all the molds in their collection, except for two: The Sonata and the Fanfare Medallion. Swags were created using the Etude and Fanfare Border. My very favorite mold of all was the Symphony mold...the texture and relief that it produces is surreal; it can be used to create a continuous panel (as shown), or individual sections of a panel. My second favorite was the Quadrille border that produces the most intricate chrysanthemum formation. The corners of the cake were accentuated with the small and large Quadrille medallions! 
If you make cakes as I do, you NEED these new molds!!!...Give them a try and be forever hooked with this new fabulous line of molds.

We were thrilled to receive an invitation by Cake Central Magazine to design a "Purple Rococo Wedding Cake" for an upcoming issue, and now we are beyond thrilled to see one of our cakes featured on their pretty pages:). This issue is filled with gorgeous cakes designed by some of the most creative and talented Pastry Chefs in this Industry. It's a true honor to be in company of such amazing professionals!
I have to extend a huge thank you to my dear friend and super talented photographer Sherri Barber owner at Sherri Barber Photography, for taking the time to photograph this cake, and to Jennifer Noll from All Occasions Rentals and Events for allowing me to use there fabulous pieces!

We are truly honored to have one of our cakes featured on Cake Geek Magazine from the UK, alongside such talented cake designers from around the world!
Their recent "Secret Garden Cakes" feature includes one of our most romantic cakes, created for a truly special client:)
Take a minute to read their feature...it will sure make your imagination run!

We were thrilled to receive the news from Cincinnati City Beat that we have been selected as one of their twelve professionals to be featured in their "2015 Love List".
What we love about City Beat is their creativity and their constant push to highlight the intense talent of this city that we call home:)
Special thanks to Ilene Ross, for her unlimited enthusiasm about our work, and to Jesse Fox for her creative photography...I was supposed to look exhausted, and to be honest, that's exactly how I feel/look after finishing one of our daunting confections!...minus the pearl necklace, of course!

We are beyond trilled to see one of our favorite clients and cake designs from 2014 featured on the beautiful and stylish pages of Venue magazine!
It was such a joy to work with this client and to create Amy's dream cake. Her stunning VW bridal gown was the inspiration for our design and it is one of the most beautiful dresses we have seen!
Every  decoration on the cake was delicately crafted from chocolate or sugar paste, and were custom replicas of some of the detail on Amy's dress. 

Our cake was iced with the thinest layer of a melt-in-your-mouth white chocolate (it is SO delicious...we never use fondant!). 
To celebrate this memorable day Amy and Peter chose the most delicious Toasted Almonds cake paired with Sweet Apricots Mousseline with a touch of Almond Crunch. The feedback we received on the taste of the cake was that is was "Amazing".
Our sugar flowers were carefully placed on the cake, isolated from the cake itself by inserting the flower stems in plastic straws. This is an extra step that we take in keeping the outmost hygienic handling of the cake  and securing the preservation of our sugar flowers, as they are intended to be kept by the bride. 
We always deliver to the venue along with the cake, a pastry box to safely collect and transport our sugar flowers...after all, we craft them with so much care, petal by petal, and love the idea that they on themselves constitute the sweetest memento of such special day!!!
Once again, congratulations  Amy and Peter, we wish you many, many more years of happiness and togetherness!
Ileana and staff

Our work was featured on the spotlight section of the latest issue of CakeCentral Magazine and this is HUGE!
I love how the editors of  CakeCentral.com broke down the article!
They asked for tips and lessons learned and that is my favorite part of all,
I feel honored to have been selected among so many talented professionals in this industry!

I would like to thank my dear and ridiculously talented friend Sherri Barber, from Sherri Barber: Photographer who took the profile pic that the magazine chose for the feature:)

Cincinnati Wedding Magazine selected three local venues and invited three of our most talented event planners to put together a team of vendors that would create a bridal installation that represented the character of each venue.
We had the honor to be invited to participate by Dora Manuel, owner at Viva Bella Events, fro whose clients we have designed many gorgeous and super delicious cakes!
All three venues selected by the magazine were beautiful and are places for which we regularly deliver cakes before, but not to the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center!
You may know by now that I am an architect by trade! The CAC was designed by the renowned architect Saha Hadid, and is an architecture jewel within the urban fabric of this beautiful city. It's overall architecture and interior design is pretty contemporary and stark, with the use of industrial looking materials, juxtaposed with smooth and reflective materials. 

I was invited by Cincinnati Wedding Magazine to create a "Tribal" wedding cake, to be featured on their Winter 2015 Issue. I LOVE working with CWM staff!
The concept of this spread was led by the super talented Tamia Stinson who put together a very cool and sophisticated look for a modern bride who loved to travel around the world!

The magazine gave  me a clear direction that included a color palette and feel for the cake. They shared inspiration images of items they were considered to feature ...every of of them was so beautiful!

I have it my hands!...Our first national feature, on the pretty pages of Where Women Cook!. Humbled to be on the same pages with such amazing talented women. I invite you to enjoy the beautiful pics of  Gina Weathersby Photography, and read the story on how I started this small sugar kingdom:)
Two of my favorite quick and easy recipes are shared in the article!...Give them a try!

That profile pic captured by the super talented Gina Weathersby, makes me smile every time I see it:)
Smile, always smile...a big smile takes you places...and makes your life sweeter:)

Simple, paper thin sugar frills!...You could do them this way, or inverting the cake, and having gravity work for you. After the cake is covered with frills, you re invert the cake and voila!. I recommend that you only use the invert method on cakes that have been refrigerated for a few hours, and on cakes that have been layered with pure butter buttercream!

Valeria and Gabriel. The reason I was born was to be their mom:)...They were not happy about being part of the shoot!..specially Gabe, who hate pics!!!

I've been busy, real busy.  So today, I decided to take the day off, and catch up with my leisure reading...and look what a sweet surprise I had...one of my favorite wedding cake featured in the latest Issue of Cincinnati Wedding Magazine!

I really got in love with this wedding cake design, but more important that that...I fell in LOVE with this client. Not only Megan (Bride) was one of the sweetest Brides I have had, but also, her Mom, LeAnne...is just AMAZING. Every interaction with them was pure joy, and their mom-daughter dynamic was so refreshing and loving that kept me thinking: "This is the type of relationship I want to have with my own daughter!

It is hard to believe that half of the year has already passed, and that it's been over a year since I made this beautiful and Delicious wedding cake!

I love how Leah Robbins capture the reaction of Megan and James looking at their cake for the first time!

Not only was this cake gorgeous...if it is ok for me to say so :)...it was DELICIOUS!
Megan chose my French Vanilla Sponge, paired with the most delicious and fragrant Raspberry and White Chocolate Mousseline. 
The talented Leah Robbins capture this beautiful image on the plated cake, that was so artfully done by the amazing team of Jeff Thomas catering, with whom I LOVE working!
I made a few White Chocolate lace pieces to garnish the plates of the Bridal party...to me, this is how a "Restaurant Quality Plated Dessert" looks like!

I've been fortunate to stay in touch with Megan and LeAnn, and enjoy their friendship!
I can't wait to see Megan and James family grow!